Saturday, April 24, 2010

This is a little embarrassing, but I suppose now, almost two weeks later, I should be posting my pictures and thoughts from Opening Day 2010, which happened (for the Dodgers) on April 13, 2010. Given the early games at Nationals Park this weekend, I thought I would post them up today for your comments and thoughts.

2010 marked at least the seventh home opener in a row that I was fortunate enough to attend. And given last year's event was marked by Orlando Hudson hitting for the cycle and a crowd-pleasing stunt to have the Dodger players come down through the field-level aisles onto the field (a logistic and security nightmare, I imagine, but a wonderful device to fire up the crowd and underline that the Dodgers are the Los Angeles fans' team), I figured this year's home opener would find it tough to match that majesty.

Indeed, it didn't even come close. But it was still a fun time!

First off, even before I got into the stadium, Victoria's Secret-clad women heralded my arrival:

And as I entered through the loge level entrance (third-base side), Miller Lite promotion women accosted me to ask me layup-type questions in order to win mini-Dodger foam fingers. Within one minute of entering the gates, I was indeed a winner. We were off to a good start.

And then, I headed down toward the center spine bank of escalators in order to head down to my field-level seats. Along the way, the unrenovated loge level concourse seemed a bit brighter than normal, thanks to new column-wraps of Dodgers past and present. First, the Tornado, Hideo Nomo (who was relegated to a column behind a condiment stand, a place unfitting for the 1995 NL Rookie of the Year):

The Dodgers' greatest closer, Eric Gagne:

Fast forward to Dodgers present: the Bison, Matt Kemp.

Okay, this walk was getting tiresome! I need rations for this arduous journey! But wait, when did beer hit $12.25 for a cup? That's highway robbery!

The beer cart vendor tried to tell me that it was $12.25 last year for a cup of beer, but honestly I couldn't remember that extra $0.25. Suddenly, the Dodger players on the column wraps looked slightly disproportionate (like the width between eyes on Jamey Carroll):

And this is where we put King James, behind a water pipe? What an insult!

(Actually, as I walked around some more, I realized that players received more than one column wrap, so hopefully Loney's other placement(s) weren't partially obscured.)

Speaking of rations, as I made it down to Field Level, I came across the ridiculously grotesque Victory Knot pretzel. I kid you not, the vendor had trouble telling me it sold for $18 without bursting into laughter--and when she said that it came with dipping sauces, I couldn't help but ask if the sauces were all liquid gold):

I passed on the VK, and went to go check out the Diamondbacks, in batting practice:

And then the view from my seats toward home plate:

The view of the right-field scoreboard, from my seats:

And finally, a shot of the outfield from my seats. Is it just me, or are there more outfield wall advertisements than ever before?

By this point, I had finished my $12.25 beer, the weather was hot, and I was ready for my first Dodger Dog (and second Dodger beer) of the 2010 season:

First Dodger Dog of the year. Third beer of the year.

Now, with Dodger Dog in stomach, this becomes a real game. More pictures soon!

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comments:

That's hilarious that you mentioned the mini foam fingers. Mrs. Dusty-in-law and I got those, too. She had been wanting one for several years, now, so it was a dream come true. Right now, hers is resting on the hand of Matt Kemp's bobblehead.

One thing I wish the Dodgers would do especially on the field level going towards the outfiled, is have the ushers hold people from going to their seat until the inning half is over.

They do this at Petco but it works there because they have little holding cells up on top. It is annoying to try and watch a game and having some late confused fan stand around in front of you for 5 minutes looking for their seats in the first second and third inning!

Still Bills was a big ? because of his crappy finish last year. And Padilla does what he normally does which is be inconsistent and Charlie Knuckler hasn't exactly destroyed the league before this year.

"And to play devil's advocate on the pitching, there was no way anyone could know that just about every pitcher would get off to a disappointing start."

I'm hearing you, I'm just saying that to look at other teams who have legitimate, no question guys (plural), and then to look back at our own pitching staff...

It's not like SF looked over at their two-time Cy Young winning pitcher and said "We think he'll at least get off to an okay start." Or Sabathia. Or Greinke. Or...down the line. Our "thinking" was always along the lines of "IF Bills comes back around, and IF Kershaw picks up another pitch and continues to grow, and IF Padilla can eat up some innings..." Just not a way to contend.

@Paul 559p: totally agree with you on the ushers making people wait until the half-inning, I enjoyed this behavior at Petco as well; it is a nice courtesy.

Compunding this is the disappearance of that painted line ahead of which standers could not congregate. Now that they've removed that line, the crowd lingering in the concourse moves all the way up to the back row of seats. That's bad.

I agree I am not sure when it was decided by people in charge of teams that their announcers must basically be fans in the pressbox. Rockies,Zona, Nats are announcers are freakin annoying as all hell with that.

I love (meaning hate) how the new crop of "broadcasters" are hired to be the team's house men and then act like they've been hardcore rabid fans of that team since childhood. Dibble is in this category. Victor Rojas definitely is and I love to give him shit about it on Twitter. He used to be a very good MLB Network guy then after being hired with the Angels suddenly, overnight, became the biggest homer for Angels. Seeing him in that Snuggie was the last straw. It's something he would have totally been bagging on three weeks before but overnight thought was best idea in the world. There are fewer and fewer and fewer real play by play guys worth one squirt of poop. Been watching a lot of stuff about Chick Hearn the last couple of days, and thinking back to what a great caller he was. You could listen to his call and know exactly what was happening without having to see it. Clearly this used to be more important in the pre-TV era but even with TV (and for those of us who still relish radio), it's an important concept in broadcasting to be able to paint a picture for the audience no matter the medium. And despite who signed their paycheck and despite that they were clearly for the home team, they at least were fair adn called a spade a spade on plays. Hell, I often got mad at Chick for being too neutral or bagging on our own players too much.

It cracks me up that as FB reported Dibble was wailing about the call at the plate. If it's the Pudge call, it's ironic because Pudge after the game watched the play and pronounced it the right decision.

Haha, and i also remember last year when the dodgers played colorado i think it was loney hit a HR that wraped around the foul pole and the announcer said something like "Oh No!!! Get foul, get foul, get foul. Ahh its outta here."